Various embodiments of the present invention generally relate to apparatuses and methods for melting, refining and processing metals. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention generally relate to burner panels for use in metal melting furnaces and/or the like.
The art of steel making is very well developed. In general, and most commonly, an electric arc furnace (EAF) is used to make steel by application of an electric arc to melt one or more scrap metals and/or other raw iron products and alloys that are placed within the furnace. Other methods include enhanced versions of EAFs that make steel by melting DRI (direct reduced iron) combined with the hot metal from a blast furnace. To enhance the steel making process, additional chemical energy is provided to the furnace by auxiliary means. The most common forms of auxiliary means comprise burners, injectors, and jets using fuel and an oxidizing gas to produce combustion products with a high heat content to assist the arc.
Further embodiments comprise multiple movable or permanently fixed burners utilizing hydrocarbon fuel such as, for example, natural gas or oil, at least one movable oxygen lance for injection of a stream of oxygen toward the molten bath for refining purposes and a movable means for injecting solid carbonaceous fuel for combustion and slag foaming purposes.
In various embodiments of EAFs, scrap metal, or charges, are dumped into the furnace through an opening. Quite typically these charges further comprise charged carbon and other slag forming materials. Other processes comprise using a ladle for hot or heated metal from a blast furnace and inserting it into the EAF furnace, such as by injection of the DRI by a lance.
There are numerous phases of charge processing in an EAF furnace and/or an EAF-like furnace. In the melting phase, the electric arc and burners melt the burden into a molten pool of metal (melted metal), called an iron carbon melt, which accumulates at the bottom or hearth of the furnace. Most commonly, after melting the charge, an electric arc furnace proceeds to a refining and/or decarburization phase.
In this phase, the metal melt continues to be heated by the arc until slag forming materials combine with impurities in the iron carbon melt and rise to the surface as slag. When the iron carbon melt reaches a boiling temperature, the charged carbon in the melt combines with any oxygen present in the bath to form carbon monoxide bubbles which rise to the surface of the bath, forming foaming slag. The foaming slag acts as an insulator throughout the furnace.
When an electric arc furnace operates without burners, the charged scrap or charge is rapidly melted at the hot spots at regions of highest electric current density, but often remains un-melted at the cold spots. This creates harsh conditions for furnace wall and refractory lining located at the hot spots due to excessive exposure to heat from the arc during the latter portions of the melt down cycle. Scrap located in the cold spots receives heat from the arc at a reduced rate during the melt down cycle, thereby creating cold spots. To melt the cold spots, the heat is applied for a longer period of total time, thereby applying heat to the hot spots for longer than desirable. This asymmetrical heat distribution from the arc and non-uniform wear of the furnace walls are typical for both alternating current and direct current arc furnaces operating without burners.
Cold spots are typically formed in areas further away from the furnace arc as scrap located in these areas receives electrical energy at a reduced rate per ton of scrap. A typical example of such a cold spot is the tapping spout, due to its location away from the arc. Another cold spot occurs at the slag door due to excessive heat losses to ambient air infiltrated through this area. It is common for furnaces utilizing additional injection of materials, such as slag forming material, direct reduced iron, etc., (which is removed through a slag door or through an opening in the furnace side wall) to create cold spots due to localized charging of additional heat consuming materials during the melt down cycle.
Prior art solutions to this challenge have been to incorporate further burners around the furnace to apply additional sources of heat to the cold spots. Electric arc furnaces equipped with burners located at cold spots have improved uniformity of scrap melting and reduce build-ups of materials at the cold spots. When auxiliary heat sources such as burners are placed in the electric arc furnace, their location is chosen to avoid further overheating of hot spots resulting from the rapid melting of scrap located between the electrode and the furnace shell. More specifically, the burners are located as far away from hot spots as is practically possible and the burner flame outlet opening direction is chosen so that flame penetration occurs predominantly into the scrap pile located at the cold spots and not to already heated portions of the furnace.
Further heating and processing is realized by a decarburization process wherein, in typical embodiments of the prior art utilizing advanced or more modern EAF techniques, a high velocity, usually supersonic, flow(s) of oxygen is blown into the metal bath with either lances or burner/lances to decarburize the bath by oxidation of the carbon contained in the bath, forming CO and/or CO2. The burner(s)/lance(s) act more uniformly to melt the charge, lessen or prevent overheating, minimize the melt time and minimize the arc operating time.
By boiling the metal bath or liquid metal with the injected oxygen, the carbon content of the bath may be reduced to a selected or reduced level. It is commonly regarded that if an iron carbon melt is under 2% carbon, the melt becomes steel. EAF steel making processes typically begin with burdens having less than 1% carbon. The carbon in the steel bath is continually reduced until it reaches the content desired for producing a specific grade of steel, such as, for example, and not by way of limitation, down to less than 0.1% for low carbon steels.
In an effort to decrease steel production times in electric arc furnaces, apparatuses and methods have been developed to alter the means of delivering further energy to the furnace. Various such improvements include, but are not limited to, conventional burners mounted on the water-cooled side walls (panels or furnaces), conventional lances, conventional burners, and/or the like.
It has been long known that the use of cooling panels in an electric arc furnace increases the refractory sidewall life to at least twenty-five times that of normal refractory material. Further, the use of correctly installed cooling panels does not present a significant hazard to electric arc furnace operation. The water-cooled systems are capable of employing cooling panels both for the shell walls and also for the furnace roof.
Generally, the entire cooling system is formed of a ring of cooling panels encircling the furnace interior above the slag line.
Forced circulation of water or other cooling fluids through the cooling system is a characteristic to achieve efficient and reliable cooling.
Examples of prior art water-cooled elements of various burner panels may be found in at least U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,870,873; 6,580,743; 6,563,855; 6,137,823; 6,104,743; 5,772,430; 5,740,196; 5,561,685; 5,426,664; 5,327,453; 4,979,896; and 4,637,034.
The incorporation of water-cooled elements has allowed the use of further energy within the furnace to increase the efficiency of the furnace, decrease run time, and/or the like. Examples of further energy sources include the use of the burners together with carbon and/or oxygen lances and have allowed electric steelmakers to substantially reduce electrical energy consumption and to increase furnace production rate due to the additional heat input generated by the oxidation of carbon, and by significant increases in electric arc thermal efficiency achieved by the formation of a foamy slag layer that insulates the electric arc from heat losses. The foamy slag also stabilizes the electric arc and therefore allows for a higher electrical power input rate. The foamy slag layer is created by CO bubbles that are formed by the oxidation of injected carbon to CO. The increased flow of injected carbon creates increased localized CO generation. Accordingly, most EAF furnace units also comprise a postproduction means for removing or reducing CO levels in the off gas.
Mixing of the CO with oxygen inside of the electric arc furnace is desirable but very difficult to arrange without excessive oxidation of the slag and electrodes. Accordingly, the art field has developed post-production means for treating the high CO content of the off gas.
One of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that the most modem electric arc furnaces are equipped with all or some of the above-mentioned means for auxiliary heat input and or metal melting, in some part because of the incorporation of water-cooled elements.
Taken in connection with the improvements to the art field in the design and operation of metal melting furnaces have been improvements in burner panel design. Some such patents teaching and disclosing various burner panel configurations include, but are not limited to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,703,336; 5,444,733; 6,212,218; 6,372,010; 5,166,950; 5,471,495; 6,289,035; 6,614,831; 5,373,530; 5,802,097; 6,999, 495; and, 6,342,086. Such prior art patents have been beneficial. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,999,495 has found wide applicability for increasing spatial energy coverage in a furnace. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,831 has found applicability in extending the reach of various tools, such as a burner or a lance, into the interior of a furnace. However, the art field is in search of further improved apparatuses and methods for the melting of metals.
It is known that one of the causes of burner panel/lance failure is “flashback”, “blowback”“rebound”and/or “jet reflection”. These terms commonly refer to a condition resulting from jet (oxygen lance or burner jet) being reflected back to the panel whether the reflection is caused from the steel bath or melting metals (scrap materials inside the furnace that are not yet melted). The use of the term flashback shall mean and refer to all of the aforementioned terms unless specifically stated otherwise. Prior art solutions to various challenges associated with flashback have been dealt with by shielding the burner jet and/or lance. However, shielding often results in increasing the distance from the burner or lance to the steel bath or melting metals. Accordingly, the art field is in search of methods and apparatuses wherein a distance from a burner jet nozzle or lance nozzle to the molten metal is minimized while providing enhanced cooling to the burner panel.